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Blizzard have announced that the game will now have a new format, and nine new deck slots.

Ben Brode has released a video announcing that Hearthstone will now have two formats; Standard and Wild. Alongside having a new format, there will now be space for eighteen deck slots.

The new, Standard format, will use cards from the last two years of sets, Basic cards and Classic cards. This will allow the designers to have more impact on the meta with new cards, and also allow new players to catch up with their collections. The Wild format will allow players to use any card from their collection, which is the format we currently play. Players will have a different ranking for each format and will be able to choose which one to queue up for. The official format will be Standard, and is the format that will carry Hearthstone Championship Tour points for 2016.

There is also the announcement of the Hearthstone Zodiac. The first year of which will be "The Year of the Kraken"

According to the accompanying blog entry and FAQ, the Standard format will arrive in Spring. The rules mean that as soon as the first expansion of this year is released, Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes will rotate out of the format, and will not be legal in Standard. When an adventure rotates out, it will no longer be available for purchase, but you will instead be able to dust the cards from it.

This is not a new concept in card games. Hearthstone have tended to steer away from things that were done in other games, but introducing formats is a logical step and should make the game more accessible and interesting.

Feel free to comment below on whether you think this will change things for the better.

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Soooo, let me get this right in my mind. I spend a lot of money and time to build a solid collection of cards, and now i'm being told that about a third of those are no longer worth a crap. BUT, I can buy new cards, adventures, and expansions to REPLACE those cards with and what they do. OH, and don't forget, that at MAX, they have a 2 year shelf life. Why do I feel like I'm being asked to drop my drawers and bend over a barrel and SMILE? I'm sorry, but this "easier for new players" bit just doesn't cut it. I'll give you a good analogy. Get cable tv, first year is a great deal. Then prices start to go WAY up. BUT new people can get great deals. No appreciation for being loyal and sticking with the company. I understand that something had to be done, but THIS?? There has to have been a better way to have done this. Sorry but this is horrible.

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Soooo, let me get this right in my mind. I spend a lot of money and time to build a solid collection of cards, and now i'm being told that about a third of those are no longer worth a crap. BUT, I can buy new cards, adventures, and expansions to REPLACE those cards with and what they do. OH, and don't forget, that at MAX, they have a 2 year shelf life. Why do I feel like I'm being asked to drop my drawers and bend over a barrel and SMILE? I'm sorry, but this "easier for new players" bit just doesn't cut it. I'll give you a good analogy. Get cable tv, first year is a great deal. Then prices start to go WAY up. BUT new people can get great deals. No appreciation for being loyal and sticking with the company. I understand that something had to be done, but THIS?? There has to have been a better way to have done this. Sorry but this is horrible.

What is your suggestion on preventing a meta to stall and be not scary for new players to join with tons of cards? You practically lose nothing with this; it's not like the cards you collected are removed entirely out of the game. If you play competitively then you will see why this was necessary and how benefitial it is.

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Soooo, let me get this right in my mind. I spend a lot of money and time to build a solid collection of cards, and now i'm being told that about a third of those are no longer worth a crap. BUT, I can buy new cards, adventures, and expansions to REPLACE those cards with and what they do. OH, and don't forget, that at MAX, they have a 2 year shelf life. Why do I feel like I'm being asked to drop my drawers and bend over a barrel and SMILE? I'm sorry, but this "easier for new players" bit just doesn't cut it. I'll give you a good analogy. Get cable tv, first year is a great deal. Then prices start to go WAY up. BUT new people can get great deals. No appreciation for being loyal and sticking with the company. I understand that something had to be done, but THIS?? There has to have been a better way to have done this. Sorry but this is horrible.

You can still play on WIld mode with maxed set, it’ll be the format where anyfin can happen :-)

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Me being a newish player I am not opposed to what is happening with the standard game mode. Because of new cards being inserted the game will be evolving with every expansion. I think this is a good thing for the game and I am looking forward to having standard in Hearthstone. I guess I am one of the lucky ones being that I never bought NAXX.

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Does this include classic cards, because they are the base of all hearthstone decks. Freeze Mage for instance. The deck will be eliminated if this happens. Also, I think both wild and standard should count for tournament points.

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Does this include classic cards, because they are the base of all hearthstone decks. Freeze Mage for instance. The deck will be eliminated if this happens. Also, I think both wild and standard should count for tournament points.

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New player problem: Having to grind a lot to get adventures, various cards from classic and new sets to face off against older players.

Solution: Ban everything in between original cards and latest 4 expansions.

Result: Wont it still be hard for new players? By the time they get their classic collection and adventures done, begin to buy the latest expansion, a new expansion rolls in making something the player bought obsolete. So If i get into hearthstone in spring, I begin by buying classic cards. Older players already have these but MMR saves me for a while. After amassing enough classic, I choose between BRM, TGT, New Exp or LOE. BrM and TgT would hold lesser value since by the time I have eough of New Exp and LoE, Newer expansion rolls out making BRM and TgT obsolete. My only option is to have to spend tons of money or play atleast a year of catching up.

Real Reason behind the change: TgT was a huge failure. according to an article I was reading something around only 13 of the entire set sees play on a regular basis. Many people simply wont buy it because the existing cards are simply better. This is a failure i think on the design teams part. They did not make cards which could competitively replace or stand up against what blizzard already had.

Instead of making auto include cards like piloted shredder, boom, sludge Belcher obsolete, They should nerf them to allow a level playing field and let the new cards shine. Its as unfair/fair to epople who crafted these, as making the card un-usuable in the now primary mode of HS. Or print new cards that synergise with specific unused minions to push them forward. I never saw my gallywix see competitive play. I was hoping a more control oriented rogue may see play out of him one day. I do not see Raptor rogue flourishing if it doesn't have the death rattle minions from Naxx to help him forge a solid deck. Yes yes, there is wild mode, but packs with "wild cards" wont be available anymore. No one is going to spend their dust one getting cards which can only be used in one mode.

Another problem with this mode is, new cards can only synergise with classic sets to ensure longevity for 2 cycles, since every other set will be rotated out. So as a very crude example, if a new card is printed for warlock ( 2 mana: 2/3 At the end of your turn, resurrect a death rattle minion that died in this turn and another one 5 mana: 4/4 give your death rattle minions 2+2) They can create a sweet dreadsteed deck. But come next year these two cards stay but dread steed is gone. Or for instance paladin gets new mediocre secrets to make up for ones they lost, but next year Mysterious challenger is out and the secret is again an un-used card...

Sorry if this sounds ranty. I try to keep things as logical and explanatory as possible. feel free to show me to convince me to get behind this decision.

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Ability to craft adventure cards and actual card rotation is incredibly healthy for the game, fixing numerous problems like power creep, meta game diversity etc. You can't print a new card for Standard without having it to compete with other, for example.

Actually opening cards you need in packs takes a ton of luck, and adventures are often end up in such way that you need that 1 card that is 3 blocks down, so keep farming that 2100 gold.

Grinding cards and new-player entry barrier would always exist and having Standard can make it a bit easier.

Big thing: Literally nobody is forcing you to play Standard, and that's the whole beauty of Blizzard's decision about how it's going to look like.

I've seen this model in Magic: The Gathering for many, many years and thus far it was both commercially and game-wise sucsessful. All it takes is to make a good set and not some crap.

Defining "good" and creating "good sets" are pieces where, I am afraid, Blizzard could struggle without 20+ years of experience like of M:TG devs. Thus far we've seen downs and ups in expansions and adventures and that may be just ending up it reducing aforementioned diversity in Standard instead of promoting it. I repeat - nobody is forcing you to play Standard(unless you are heading for HSWC or something) and if things go ugly Wild can become a real headliner of future Hearthstone.

Either way, we got to see some actual changes implemented before crying about them. I know that's our primary job as a gaming community but frankly speaking it makes little sense.

GL&HF!

Edited February 3, 2016 by Paracel

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At the very least, a new player coming into the game after the new expansion hits, will have two less adventure / expansion cards to worry about and consider if he needs them to be competitive. A new player starting after a year from now, will have more sets that he needn't worry about. So, in that way it makes it bit easier for them. Ultimately, anyway starting late, will have some catching up to do - be it grinding or paying. This makes it comparatively easier for them.

Similarly, devs would only need to worry about a much more limited set of cards and their interactions to balance for competitive play, thereby giving them so more room to be creative or at the very least, more time to iterate on changes with a smaller subset of cards.

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At the very least, a new player coming into the game after the new expansion hits, will have two less adventure / expansion cards to worry about and consider if he needs them to be competitive.

Similarly, devs would only need to worry about a much more limited set of cards and their interactions to balance for competitive play, thereby giving them so more room to be creative or at the very least, more time to iterate on changes with a smaller subset of cards.

Here is the tricky part: you can't have a cake and eat it too. If Blizzard put new player experience on top of their priorities, it will ultimately hit every other aspect of the game like high-end play or e-sports competitions.

If they will only care about Standard, old players who are keen on Eternal format like Wild would be significantly hurt, because they will feel like their efforts and money is wasted and game designers don't care about them at all, only seeking to make money out of new expansions.

Satisfying all your players is your ultimate goal as a game developer, and - I have expressed my concerns - I am afraid Blizzard might be biting more that they can chew. Balancing things even in Standard so you have a good meta game there and in Wild, where you have to worry about occasionally breaking it with some new cards, is what Blizzard up to face, if they want to have a good game.

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Balancing things even in Standard so you have a good meta game there and in Wild, where you have to worry about occasionally breaking it with some new cards, is what Blizzard up to face, if they want to have a good game.

I suspect they won't try too hard to keep Wild particularly balanced, at least within bounds that we're used to. Hence the name.

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@paracel: actually Blizzard is pushing standard to be, well, the new standard. The fact that non-standard decks wont be available to buy anymore, blizzard calling standard the "more balanced" mode and such indicate that wild is just there as a band-aid for non-new players. I myself am not a veteran. But I don't want to see some my first legendaries get limited to a mode which will be highly imbalanced soon.

Also Meta is not stale. We had just stabilized after TgT when LoE came in. Yes some classes got more love than others. But if we look at Druid, that class has changed oh so little since classic.

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terrible idea. Welcoming new players with open arms while giving the rest of us the middle finger...and laughing at the heaps of money they've collected from people who wanted to own most cards/golden cards (many of which will no longer be playable in ranked/standard).

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@SithLordOfSnark: I would keep Majordomo for Adventures. You can use him to cheese some bosses.

On topic now, I am not sure if I am happy with Standard format. I mean, it's good for new players or old ones that don't play often, but even they have to still keep purchasing the newer packs and adventures. Meanwhile, it's obvious that the format that the game had until now and that is going to be renamed into Wild will not have much priority for the team. The proof of that is that they will be removing the older packs in favour of Standard and that they will also make Standard into the official tournament format. The fact that even the old game format is being named Wild and as Ben Brode said in the video "Wild is going to be crazy" (or something like that) means that they don't intend to balance it very much.

Even the balancing of Standard is going to be a hard task. They really need to come up with some seriously good cards for Rogues, for example. Paladins and Priests are getting hit really hard as well and these two classes will also need a lot of help (even though a lot of people hate Paladin atm, just take a look at the cards they will be losing and you will understand that the class is left with almost nothing). As Sottle said, the next expansion is going to be the most crucial in the history of the game.

Lastly, I don't understand why they want to remove old adventures. I mean, hasn't the team spent countless hours on them? Are they happy with just removing the product of their work forever? Does it feel rewarding for them? Or is it just an opportunity for them to re-serve Adventure content without no-one realising it's the same boss with a different name? I mean, Hearthstone already had some p2w features, but buying Adventure content, that you consciously know is going to be removed in a couple of years, screams that they just care about profit only.

EDIT - OK, they said that they will balance both formats. But I don't think Wild will be more popular than Standard.

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At the very least, a new player coming into the game after the new expansion hits, will have two less adventure / expansion cards to worry about and consider if he needs them to be competitive. A new player starting after a year from now, will have more sets that he needn't worry about. So, in that way it makes it bit easier for them. Ultimately, anyway starting late, will have some catching up to do - be it grinding or paying. This makes it comparatively easier for them.

Similarly, devs would only need to worry about a much more limited set of cards and their interactions to balance for competitive play, thereby giving them so more room to be creative or at the very least, more time to iterate on changes with a smaller subset of cards.

It's not really that big of a deal with the new players having to care less about the previous adventures/expansions because in the end, you still need 30 cards to make a deck. They won't buy Naxx, but they will have to spend that gold on adventures wings or packs to craft the cards that will be used instead of GvG.

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@SithLordOfSnark: I would keep Majordomo for Adventures. You can use him to cheese some bosses.

On topic now, I am not sure if I am happy with Standard format. I mean, it's good for new players or old ones that don't play often, but even they have to still keep purchasing the newer packs and adventures. Meanwhile, it's obvious that the format that the game had until now and that is going to be renamed into Wild will not have much priority for the team. The proof of that is that they will be removing the older packs in favour of Standard and that they will also make Standard into the official tournament format. The fact that even the old game format is being named Wild and as Ben Brode said in the video "Wild is going to be crazy" (or something like that) means that they don't intend to balance it very much.

Even the balancing of Standard is going to be a hard task. They really need to come up with some seriously good cards for Rogues, for example. Paladins and Priests are getting hit really hard as well and these two classes will also need a lot of help (even though a lot of people hate Paladin atm, just take a look at the cards they will be losing and you will understand that the class is left with almost nothing). As Sottle said, the next expansion is going to be the most crucial in the history of the game.

Lastly, I don't understand why they want to remove old adventures. I mean, hasn't the team spent countless hours on them? Are they happy with just removing the product of their work forever? Does it feel rewarding for them? Or is it just an opportunity for them to re-serve Adventure content without no-one realizing it's the same boss with a different name? I mean, Hearthstone already had some p2w features, but buying Adventure content, that you consciously know is going to be removed in a couple of years, screams that they just care about profit only.

EDIT - OK, they said that they will balance both formats. But I don't think Wild will be more popular than Standard.

These are all my concerns as well, but you were able to state them in a much more elegant way than I was. I also have a few others as well, but well put. I couldn't agree more. Still feel like I'm being tossed aside for some reason.

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